Domain: hydrogenics.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to hydrogenics.com.
Comments · 7
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Re:That's specific energy
Hydrogen fuel cells have horrible specific power - it makes a weak motor, because they can't provide a lot of power at any given time. You need a huge fuel cell to power a tiny motor.
I don't know why you continue to claim this. It is simply wrong, even when I misread and gave an inappropriate answer to your "first post".Here is an example: https://www.hydrogenics.com/hy...
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Re:Hydogen is just a way to store energy
Riversimple in the UK. The car is called the Rasa. Spec sheet:
http://arstechnica.com/cars/20...
Hydrogenics spec sheet for the fue cell (I hate PDFs):
http://hydrogenics.com/docs/de...
Based on the car spec sheet, fuel cell appears to be either the HD8-200 or the HD8-500
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We've had one in Toronto for months ...Hydrogenics built one at ExPlace in Toronto back in August: Hydrogenics at the 2004 CNE.
It's right next door to our wind turbine
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Re:Hydrogen Power.
Funny thing is that the best, most efficient way of generating hydrogen from water hydrolysis is through WIND power....... Turns out that the company Hydrogenics already has an industrial grade hydrogen converter from wind power already on the market. Several of these are enough for an entire gas (well, now it will be "fuel") stations to meet demand.
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Re:Why hydrogen?
The problem with Ethanol as a fuel for fuel cells (solid oxide FCs) is that you will have coke (carbon) formation at the anode, which will kill the catalyst sites, and thereby the cell will stop producing electricity. Moreover, coke formation will probably cause the cells to rupture, as the stresses caused by the carbon deposits are fairly large. A lot of research is currently being done on finding new anodes that inhibit coke formation, like using copper instead of nickel as a catalyst.
The second problem with ethanol, like canola, is that it has to be manufactured: yeast will form alcohol from biomass such as corn, wheat, etc, but the initial biomass is still required to be cultivated. Plus, ethanol fermentation is relatively slow, and will only result in a maximum of about 10% ethanol by volume. 10% v/v of ethanol is low, so you'll have to expend energy to remove the water i.e. distillation, or some sort of liquid-liquid extraction. So as you see, there's inherent problems with ethanol as well, although I think that they are easy to ovecome, and I also think that ethanol-fuelled fuel cells will be a viable technology.
One hydrogen-generation technique that is viable is hydrolysis via wind-power. Hydrogenics Corp. http://www.hydrogenics.com/ recently unveiled a hydogen-fuelling station in Toronto at the Canadian National Exhibition http://www.hydrogenics.com/ir_newsdetail.asp?RELEA SEID=142064. The station generates the hydrogen by hydrolysis, which is powered by a wind turbine on the shore of Lake Ontario. The result is 65kg of 100% clean hydrogen a day, apparantly enough to power 20 cars. Note that the turbine isn't dedicated to hydrogen production... it also provides power to the Toronto grid.
IMHO, hydrolysis is one of the best ways to produce hydrogen, as long as it can be done by running on a clean electricity source. Hell, just set-up some giant treadmills, and pay people to power the hydrolysers... come to think of it,this would also solve Toronto's homeless problem. -
Re:Why hydrogen?
The problem with Ethanol as a fuel for fuel cells (solid oxide FCs) is that you will have coke (carbon) formation at the anode, which will kill the catalyst sites, and thereby the cell will stop producing electricity. Moreover, coke formation will probably cause the cells to rupture, as the stresses caused by the carbon deposits are fairly large. A lot of research is currently being done on finding new anodes that inhibit coke formation, like using copper instead of nickel as a catalyst.
The second problem with ethanol, like canola, is that it has to be manufactured: yeast will form alcohol from biomass such as corn, wheat, etc, but the initial biomass is still required to be cultivated. Plus, ethanol fermentation is relatively slow, and will only result in a maximum of about 10% ethanol by volume. 10% v/v of ethanol is low, so you'll have to expend energy to remove the water i.e. distillation, or some sort of liquid-liquid extraction. So as you see, there's inherent problems with ethanol as well, although I think that they are easy to ovecome, and I also think that ethanol-fuelled fuel cells will be a viable technology.
One hydrogen-generation technique that is viable is hydrolysis via wind-power. Hydrogenics Corp. http://www.hydrogenics.com/ recently unveiled a hydogen-fuelling station in Toronto at the Canadian National Exhibition http://www.hydrogenics.com/ir_newsdetail.asp?RELEA SEID=142064. The station generates the hydrogen by hydrolysis, which is powered by a wind turbine on the shore of Lake Ontario. The result is 65kg of 100% clean hydrogen a day, apparantly enough to power 20 cars. Note that the turbine isn't dedicated to hydrogen production... it also provides power to the Toronto grid.
IMHO, hydrolysis is one of the best ways to produce hydrogen, as long as it can be done by running on a clean electricity source. Hell, just set-up some giant treadmills, and pay people to power the hydrolysers... come to think of it,this would also solve Toronto's homeless problem. -
Re:Paris Auto Show
I've heard that GM will debut this car at this years Paris Auto Show. According to GM the real driver for development on this car is emerging economies like China. Your typical Chinese farmer lives in a house that's miles and miles off of any electrical grid. With the AUTOnomy platform, he can buy one transport that can serve as Tractor, Truck and power generation for his house when he comes home at night. Pretty cool. Of course, where is a Chinese farmer going to get a reliable source or Hydrogen??
Why, from GM of course! Who else?
From the Wired article:
Last year, GM acquired 24 percent of Hydrogenics; 20 percent of Quantum Technologies, a hydrogen-storage company; and 15 percent of General Hydrogen of Vancouver [sorry, no link].